“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’ ”

and

“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

Uh, um. Hmmm. Well, yes Mitt that is what happens, people do die because they don’t have health insurance. I have seen people die for want of a Pap smear, an appropriately timed mammogram, or medications to manage high blood pressure. And of course there are all the babies who died from prematurity, babies that I delivered from mothers who received no prenatal care.

But let’s focus on heart attacks, since that’s Romney’s example. If you have a heart attack and are without health insurance you will hopefully end up in the emergency department (if you took an ambulance, add that to your stack of bills). And in the emergency department you will get your medical condition stabilized, you will get blood tests and imaging studies, you may be transferred to a cardiac care unit if you need it, and even surgery if it’s warranted.

Butif you are uninsured you are 31% more likely to die from this heart attack than if you are privately insured(Ng et al 2012).

So, it is kind of tough luck if you are uninsured, unless I am missing how a 31% greater chance of dying is somehow preferable.

4 thoughts on “Romney affirms commitment to fetus, but not heart attack victims”

I really cannot put into words the mixture of disgust, incredulity and fear that people like Romney inspire in me.

I’ve had surgeries that have saved my life, courtesy of socialised medicine, but I have American friends that have either sold their houses and moved into tiny trailers, or, if they had no such assets, they simply died.

My illness is rare, 1 in 100,000, so I know many sufferers from all over the world, who can only find support online. Fellow Brits, Canadians, Germans, Indians, Turks, Chinese people – able to afford stabilising treatment and surgery. While delightful, funny, strong Americans got progressively more disabled, and then died.

I’ve had to drop out of the online community, I can’t take the rising death toll. No more can I arrange fundraisers, for us to send American sufferers money via PayPal, because it got too overwhelming. Someone took my place.

And just a side note about that slogan — Romney kyped it from the television show, ‘Friday Night Lights’, and creator Peter Berg has asked him to stop using it, as his campaign and policy position “are not consistent with the values of our show” (quote may not be precise — recalling from memory).